Random Thoughts

What Motivates Learning?

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This week’s #youredustory prompt is:

What motivates learning?

Innate curiosity motivates learning.

I know it sounds simple, but we all have it. In the right setting we are encouraged and our curiosity is fostered. In the wrong setting, our curiosity is squashed and we become resistant.

So What Is The Proper Setting?

One in which we are encouraged to ask questions, probe further, and investigate that which interests us. Some great examples of setting that foster learning are: Genius Hour, 20% Time, Maker Space/Maker Movement, and Project Based Learning. In each of these examples, students are encouraged to take ownership over their learning, investigate, create, question, an expand themselves.

What Happens In A Wrong Setting?

In the wrong setting, students have little to no control over what they are to learn. Learning is mandated with a top-down approach. Pacing guides, mandated (use with fidelity, no supplements allowed) curriculum, over testing, high stakes testing, etc. I think you get the idea. Basically, traditional school.

How To Break Free

The excitement is evident. This excitement translates to learning.

Push and challenge the thinking at your school. Start small, and build upon your successes. Begin with Genius Hour. Prove to the powers that be that there IS a different way to teach and learn. MAKE learning fun for your students. Tap into their interests and build on that. Change the culture of your classroom and then the school.

5 Things We Have To Stop Pretending

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This challenge was given to me by Alice Chen. This is a part of the #MakeSchoolDifferent Challenge. This couldn’t have come at a better time. I have been thinking about all the things that we do to sabotage ourselves as teachers. How can we change education?


flickr photo shared by schoschie under a Creative Commons ( BY ) license

5 Things To Stop Pretending:

  1. “I have a paperless classroom” – Oh, how we love that phrase. But let’s face it, if you’ve recreated that ditto in a digital format, can you really claim to be paperless? Literally, yes. But I believe that ‘paperless’ refers to transformative. That ditto is NOT transformative.
  2. Using any technology is innovative. We need to stop pretending that just because we can claim to be 1:1 or 2:1 does NOT mean we are using technology to it’s full potential. Playing games, or taking AR quizzes, is not innovative.
  3. Stop jumping on every new theory (aka bandwagon). Trends come and go, stop falling into the trend of the moment.
  4. Policies that are created from the top and pushed upon educators are the best practice.
  5. Isolation is good – No need for PLN.

Solutions:

  1. You want to be paperless? Then be innovative. Create lessons and assignments that require deeper thinking. Will all your lessons magically become innovative and ‘rigorous’? No, but little by little you will change the landscape of your classroom, and the learning of your students. Go ahead, try it with just one lesson this week.
  2. Too many times I have seen districts, including my own, get class sets of computers or iPads, with no training. Technology requires a shift in how we view teaching and learning. Let’s focus on good pedagogy rather than the trendy new techie device. Once this shift happens, the cool techie devices are much more relevant in your instruction.
  3. As a whole, education has too often fallen pray to the ‘latest research’. The truth is, good teachers know what works and integrate new teaching practices that are more conducive to their goals. I’m not saying don’t change, just be selective and know WHY you’re doing what you’re doing.
  4. Education policies need to stop being mandated. Whether it’s NCLB or district policies. Conversations with educators, from all levels (admin to para educators), need to be had. We are all in this together. No one group should be dictating policies.
  5. Share! Seriously, what’s the big deal? Some districts/sites have cultivated a culture of singling out teachers for great work. This is fine done in moderation. However, many (like in my district) refuse to give up their best ideas because someone else might do it better. I say if you can make my idea better, do it, then share! Again, we’re all in this together. We’re here to educate our communities, not some egocentric ‘make you feel good’ trip.

I will now challenge 5 #awesomesauce educators to tell us what we should stop pretending. Let’s here from: Kevin Ashworth, Pam Hernandez, Andy Losik, Rea Fearing, and Travis Phelps.

3D Printer Fun

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I believe in thinking BIG! That’s why when I decided I wanted a 3D printer for my class, I wrote a proposal and placed it on Donors Choose. Honestly, I had no idea what I was going to do with it. I figured I would allow students to create objects during Genius Hour. In addition, I was going to have THEM figure out the programs and printer – within reason, it is an expensive item.

So when I was notified that my project was funded by Chevron, I was beyond thrilled. Just after Spring Break our printer arrived. The following Genius Hour a group of students and I set it up. Fortunately, one of my girls had gone home and done research on the type of printer we received (Dremel). She knew more about the printer than any of us. After setting it up, we printed out a die. It was a pre-fab file on the SD Card. That was pretty cool. Then came the following week…

We discovered Tinkercad! Since then we have been creating, creating, creating! The early attempts were simple, but fun. I have students coming to school early wanting to create objects for their moms, brothers, selves…

They work together to solve design issues, and talk about new creations – there is a chicken in the making. I have another girl who went home and taught herself (with the help of the provided lessons on Tinkercad), how to use the program. She is our ‘Go To’ person. She is teaching us some of the ins and outs of the program.

It’s fun to see girls leading the way with this technology. It’s also interesting to watch the students watch the printer. It reminds me of the 1950 ads for TV, where everyone sat around as close as they could. Yeah, that’s what’s happening in my class.

I can now see how I can incorporate this into my curriculum. How fun would it be to have students working together to create the digestive system? Fun right?! Or create geometric shapes based on specific dimensions. Or create an object with a specific volume. Or create a topographic representation of a state. The possibilities are endless. This is just the beginning, I can’t wait to see where this takes us!

Spring Cleaning

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The things you find when you start cleaning house. This weekend I had had enough of my desk, in my home office. It was getting out of control! As I was sifting through everything, I ran across an article about something I started in October of 2008. I was ‘Skyping’ in the classroom before it was trendy.

I had to reread the article to remind myself of some of the details. The basics were that another teacher in the district (at another site) and I video chatted – well, our students did. I had gone to a meeting at our county office of education and gotten the idea from something I had seen there. We used Apple products – what our district invested in at the time – and iChat to communicate. We began with a closed network.

We had a great time that year. We began by focusing on speaking and listening skills, as many of our students were second language learners. We ‘met’ most Wednesdays to talk and share. At the end of the year, we met at a local non-profit art gallery. They were kind enough to let us use their backyard space for a picnic and gathering.

I love when spring cleaning results in such a treasure!

Inspiring Teachers

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Lately I’ve been thinking, what makes a great teacher, an inspiring teacher?  What characteristics do they possess? Who do I aspire to be like?

creative commons licensed ( BY-NC-SA ) flickr photo shared by courosa

1. Sharing is Caring

These people share everything they do – FREELY. They share their ideas, successes, and failures. Whether they are sharing with people in the department, site, or on the Internet via blogging or tweeting. They realize that by sharing, not only are they impacting their students, they can impact hundreds.

2. It’s Not About Them

This goes along with sharing. These teachers realize that education is bigger than them, or their classrooms. It’s about helping to create thinkers, doers, and problem solvers. They understand that what they do is for the greater good.

3. Connected

These educators realize that in order to grow and learn, they need to seek out others. You can find them on Twitter, Google+, LinkdIn, writing blogs, etc. They attend conferences, local and otherwise.

4. A Need to Learn

The learning never stops. Thus the conferences, blog reading, #brewcues, #coffeecues, and ed tech meet-ups. They go back to school, enroll in MOOCs, or take courses. There is a constant need to learn and improve themselves.

5. Collaborators

Along with sharing and being connected, collaboration is another key. They listen, and welcome, other ideas. The act of building upon one another’s ideas is a regular conversation.

6 Humble and Uplifting

When I really thought about it, I realized these people are humble about their abilities and help others along on their journey. This, I think, is by far their greatest asset.

These are the qualities of a great teacher. This is what I aspire to be.

After-School Tutoring

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The last few days, I’ve had students contacting me, at home online, to help them with their math homework. The first time, the student contacted me via email and we had a series of emails going back and forth. In class the next day, I mentioned how a student contacted me for help and how awesome that was.

The next day, I received a chat invite via Google Hangouts on my personal GMail account. My students know what the email is, but never (until now) use it. It’s used for web tools sites. She choose to contact me on this account as our district has disabled chat on the student domain. Here is a portion of our conversation:

How #awesomesauce is that? Next, I’m secretly (well not so secretly now) hoping that someone will figure out how to do the video chats and we’ll do a study group hangout.

This is what makes my job so awesome!

Why Do I Do What I Do?

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This week’s #youredustory prompt:

“People don’t buy WHAT you do, they buy WHY you do it” Simon Sinek – Why do you do what you do?

My first thought was, “My therapist would have a field day with this one [and me].”

https://www.flickr.com/photos/colinkinner/2200500024/

Someone once asked me how I could stay at the same job year after year and not get bored. Quite simply, it’s NOT the same job day after day, let alone year after year.

I do what I do because education is an ever changing entity. Theories, methods, and technology keep the classroom fresh and exciting. I am a person who loves to learn new things; I think most educators are the same way. Before teaching 5th grade, I taught 3rd for about 10 years. I never once taught the same lesson, exactly the same way, twice. I was constantly reflecting, and changing how I taught.

Change: it’s the beauty of our job. When we choose to continue to accept the positive changes, learn new techniques, and view each day as a learning experience, we can’t help but be fulfilled with “What We Do”.

So I do what I do, in part, because I’m selfish. I’m easily bored and need new challenges. Teaching affords me that luxury. Another reason I teach is because I get to inspire a love of learning through innovative and interesting ways. I get to show children how fun, and cool, fractions, technology, editing, creating, history, writing, and so much more can be!

I do what I do because it is inspiring!

Why I Love My Partner Teacher

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In the beginning of the 2013-14 school year, a new 5th grade teacher was brought in. I’ll admit I was excited yet skeptical. I’ve worked with lots of teachers at my grade level and generally have gotten along with them, but never truly ‘clicked’ with another teacher. Until Mrs. Pursley came along.

And here is why I love (working with) her – in no particular order:

  • I can talk her into doing almost anything in a classroom, no matter how crazy it is. Within 2 months she was doing Genius Hour with me.
  • We both have a student-centered classroom.
  • I get random texts from her saying things like, “You complete me <3”
  • When asked if we do A.R. (Accelerated Reader) we both respond no (in a disgusted tone) and she adds ‘Cuz AR sucks’.
  • She calls me a Dork, when I’m being one.
  • I get to call her a Dork when she’s being one.
  • She will text me at random moments just to say something smarmy.
  • We share random 80’s aerobics videos back and forth – and we both secretly love them!
  • We generally have the same mentality (age) – that of a 12 year old.
  • We constantly laugh, mainly cuz of the mentality issue.

Seriously though, she’s awesome and just felt like sharing her awesomeness with the world.

Oh, and she’s one hell of a great teacher!

Student Choice

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Recently I began a unit on the Reasons for the Revolutionary War. It’s all gamified and I am usually 1 step ahead of the kids. Last week, I was about an hour ahead of the students. I had a group getting ready to start creating their Boston Tea Party movie that afternoon. At lunch I had the thought, “Hm, I should probably have them create a storyboard”.

I then began looking up storyboards, and stumbled upon Storyboard That. It had several great examples of simple storyboards on the Boston Tea Party. I only meant to give my students some example so they could either draw theirs on paper or on Google Draw. My lack of direction and the group’s internal fearlessness, lead to better than expected results. Instead of my students taking the easy way out, they dove right into the new tool.

The students came came to me after 15 minutes and asked for my login. I told them that I didn’t have one for the site, and asked why they needed it. They then showed me their work. Yeah, they started creating their own story board, and the site prompted them to save it.

Screen Shot 2015-02-17 at 8.52.38 PM

So I did what anyone else would do. I created an account on the spot! Glad I did, too. The students are being creative and showing me what they learned.

Supporting the Beginner

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Screen Shot 2015-02-03 at 6.38.00 PMA few weeks ago I got together with a first grade teacher at my site. We decided to video tape her students holding high frequency words. The idea was to create a fun way her students could practice their words, at school and home. Needless to say, it has been a big success. The students love it, and the parents love seeing it on our school’s FaceBook Page.

So today when I stopped by to see if she needed another taping session, I was sad to find that she was a little down about the project. She had been so excited about this idea and how well it went, that she shared it with others – in hopes that they would find it as inspiring as she had. This is where she became disappointed. Unfortunately, some that she shared this with, immediately disregarded the idea saying that it would never work [for them].

And this is when I realized that those ‘new’ to technology in the classroom can be fragile. Fragile in the sense that this great new ‘thing’ that they are excited about and finding success with, which is then quickly disregarded by others, can easily break one’s spirit. She was truly disappointed that others had not wanted to try this. However, I quickly reminded her that 2 other teachers were inspired by her and had also taped their students.

It is stories like this, that encourage me to be the cheerleader for those who are willing to try. It is because of this teacher, who is now thinking of other ways to incorporate tech into her classroom, I will do what I can to support all those who dare to try something new. It’s not easy being the ‘Lone Nut’ [Jon Corippo & CUERockStar reference] in your grade level, on your campus, or in your district. But when a bunch of ‘Lone Nuts’ get together, amazing things begin to happen! And for this reason, I am looking forward to working with her with all the crazy ideas we can dream up!

Oh, and did I mention that she is a self proclaimed ‘non-techie’? Yeah, she’s THAT crazy – willing to dive into tech even when it’s outside her comfort zone. Mrs. Bolger, you inspire me!

Check out her kiddos: